I passed through the little village of Williamsborough, at two o'clock in the afternoon, and arrived at Oxford at dark. The latter is a pleasant village of some five hundred inhabitants, situated near the center of Granville county, and its seat of justice. It is a place of considerable business for an inland town; but my favorable impressions, after an hour's inspection before breakfast on the morning after my arrival, were marred by the discovery of relics of a more barbarous age, standing upon the green near the jail. They were a pillory and a whipping-post, the first and only ones I ever saw. I was told by a resident that the more enlightened people of the town were determined to have them removed, and it is to be hoped that those instruments for degradation no longer disfigure the pretty little village of Oxford.
The morning of the thirtiethDec. 1848 was clear and warm, after a night of heavy rain.
I left Oxford early, resolved to reach Hillsborough, thirty-six miles distant, at evening.
But the red clay roads, made doubly bad by the rain, impeded my progress, and I was obliged to stop at the house of a Yankee planter, four miles short of Hillsborough. In the course of the day, I forded several considerable streams, all of them much swollen, and difficult of passage, for a stranger. The Flat Creek, near Oxford, a broad and shallow stream, was hub-deep, and gave me the first unpleasant experience of fording. A few miles further on, I crossed the Tar River, over a long and substantial bridge. This is a rapid stream, and now its muddy and turbulent waters came rushing like a mountain-torrent, bearing large quantities of drift-wood in the midst of its foam. * Soon after crossing the Tar, I forded a small tributary called the Cat Tail Creek. It was not more than two rods wide, but was so deep that the water dashed into my wagon, and the current lifted it from the ground, for a moment. The Knapp-of-Reeds was broader, and but a little less rapid and dangerous; and when, at three o'clock, I crossed the Flat River, I came very near being "swamped." A bridge spanned the stream, but the ground on either side is so flat that, during floods, the river overflows its banks and expands into a lake. I reached the bridge without difficulty, but, when leaving it, found the way much impeded by drift-wood and other substances that came flowing over the banks. Charley was not at all pleased with these frequent fordings, and the masses of drift alarmed him. While my wagon-hubs were under water, and he was picking his way carefully over the submerged stones, a dark mass of weeds and bushes came floating toward him. He sheered suddenly, and for a moment the wagon was poised upon two wheels. I was saved from a cold bath by springing to the opposite side, where my weight prevented its overturning, and we were soon safe upon firm land. This was the last contest with the waters for the day, for the next stream (the Little River) was crossed by a bridge, a good distance above the less rapid current. Between the Flat and the Little Rivers, and filling the whole extent of four miles, was the immense plantation of Mr. Cameron, a Scotch gentleman. This plantation extends parallel with the rivers, a distance of fifteen miles, and covers an area of about sixty square miles. It is well managed, and yields abundant crops of wheat, corn, oats, cotton, tobacco, potatoes, and other products of the Northern and Middle States. One thousand negroes were upon it, under the direction of several overseers. Its hills are crowned with fine timber, and I observed several large flocks of sheep and herds of cattle upon the slopes. It is probably the largest landed estate in the Carolinas, perhaps in the Union.
* The Tar is about one hundred and eighty miles long. At the town of Washington, toward the coast, it expands, and is called Pamlico River, and flows into Pamlico Sound.
Night at a Yankee's Farm house.—Arrival at Hillsborough.—Early Settlements in North Carolina.
It was very dark when I reached the dwelling of Mr. Bacon (a farmer from Connecticut), four miles from Hillsborough, a small, neat, and comfortable log-house. Furniture and food were of the most humble kind, but cheerful contentment made the inmates rich. The thankful grace at table, and the prayer and praise of family worship afterward, gave light to that dwelling, where deep affliction was coming on apace. A daughter of fourteen years (one of nine children), who sat wrapped in a blanket in the corner of the huge fire-place, was wasting with consumption. She was a beautiful child, and her mother spoke of her piety, her tenderness, and sweet affection, until emotion pressed her lips into silence. She was the picture of patient suffering.
"Around her brow, as snow drop fair,
The glossy tresses cluster,
Nor pearl nor ornament was there,